“Had he grown up to be a good man?” she asked, innocently. “I am afraid not, senorita, as you would count goodness.”
“Was he kind to his men?” altogether unconscious of how embarrassing her questions might prove.
“Yes, he was kind. That was the best thing that could be said for him. He did not deserve any credit for that, though, for he had suffered so much himself from unkindness.”
“Then he deserved all the more credit,” Nan said, decidedly, and the colour in the captain's face showed how grateful her praise was to him.
“Well, it happened one November morning,” he continued, “ten years afterward, that when he had been battling all night with the wind and the waves of a terrible storm, his ship ran ashore, and in such a way that he knew he could never save her. All the earnings of his lifetime gone in a minute! What was there to live for? He had not a relative in the world, and that ship was his darling. Then the thought to take his own life came to him, as it used to sometimes when he was a poor little sailor on the top-gallant yard, only now that he was a man no thought of God came with it, and so the desperate deed was attempted.” Nan had never listened to anything so fascinating in all her life before.
“That is not all?” she asked, eagerly, for the captain had paused for a moment.
“Thank God, no! scarcely did the captain—for he was no longer first mate—think that the ugly weapon had done its work, than he seemed to be all by himself in a beautiful silver boat on a wide blue sea. It was a little boat, without sails or oars, and it bounded over the waves of its own free will, so that the captain had simply to let it carry him whither it would. Soon he knew they were nearing a shore, for he recognised the sound of breakers on the beach; but he shuddered as he heard it, for he half-remembered that something terrible had happened when he had heard that sound once before But his fright was over in a moment, for he saw a great banner waving in the air, and on it was printed, in gold letters, 'The Shore of Loving kindness.'”
